I read this “the fact that roughly half of the kids entering four year schools do not graduate within six years, arguably our largest academic scandal.” And wondered, why? Why is it a scandal?
Now, if they are going to school all along, full-time, without working and spend six years at college and don’t graduate, that’s a waste of their time and money. Obviously they shouldn’t be there.
But I officially started college in 1978 and officially graduated in 1984. I just barely made their cut off. And I spent a year and a half in Europe working in the middle. That was worth a lot more in my life than many of the college courses I took. It was certainly an education, albeit a painful one at times.
And LOTS of my students are working full-time and raising a family and going to school part-time. I know we’re a community college, so that doesn’t really count, but surely some of those factors happen at four year colleges as well.
If the students were a cake, it might be bad if they took 50% more time to cook. They’d burn. But if they don’t graduate from college in six years? I don’t see why that’s a disaster.
This rant brought to you by the quote above which can be found at Center for College Affordability and Productivity.